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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25683160">i'm searching (for you)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/photographer/pseuds/photographer'>photographer</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haikyuu!!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, Fluff, Pre-Relationship, Present Tense, Track and Field AU</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 06:06:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,912</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25683160</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/photographer/pseuds/photographer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>With her eyes blown wide and her fingers twitching out towards the tartan track, Hitoka knows that she makes a perfectly embarrassing picture of teenage crush culture.</p>
<p>Or, Yachi manages the girl's track team.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Shimizu Kiyoko/Yachi Hitoka</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>i'm searching (for you)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>With her eyes blown wide and her fingers twitching out towards the tartan track, Hitoka knows that she makes a perfectly embarrassing picture of teenage crush culture.</p>
<p>The sound of a gun firing reaches Hitoka’s ears, and, like a newborn fawn at the sound of crunching leaves, her fingers jerk out of their accustomed grip, leaving her clipboard to hang suspended between lax hands for a lone second before crashing to the ground. The sound of hard plastic slapping against concrete causes Hitoka to flinch and pray that nobody had seen her blunder, but her eyes never leave the track in front of her to check.</p>
<p>Even as Hitoka bends her knees and lowers her body down towards the concrete beneath her sneaker-clad feet, she can't force her eyes away from the sight in front of her, away from the captain of the track club sailing over the hurdles stationed in front of her. Hitoka’s face and ears glow a ridiculous red hue, maybe as an aftereffect of her blunder, maybe due to the way her wide eyes track the movement of the captain's legs as they propel her effortlessly through the air. </p>
<p>Hitoka wishes she was better in class, better at coming up with metaphors and similes, pretty words and captivating thoughts. She wishes that she had paid more attention to the red ink staining her papers with words of encouragement, the words of detailed constructive criticism highlighted in the margins to give her the ability to address the flaws held within the confines of her paper. She wishes that she had learned the proper words, the proper prose, to give the audience a vivid picture of how her captain glided across the track and sailed over the hurdles with unimaginable ease.</p>
<p>Maybe it's the surefire way the captain launches herself into the air like a ballerina jumping into a temp jeté, or a softball player planting their feet before a swing.</p>
<p>Maybe it's the air in which she does it that leaves Hitoka so breathlessly enraptured. Everything about the captain works like a well-oiled machine; the pumping of her legs, the swinging of her arms, the heaving of her chest. Some of the other runners look afraid or uneasy, frustrated or ill. Their own knowledge of their lack of coordination, of their lack of ability, poisons their mind like the steady drip of an IV into a vein, pumping faster as their time to race draws near. This mindset, the insecurity of their own potential, is something that Hitoka has never seen on the captain's face. The air surrounding the captain is always steadfast and resolute. It is hard to even imagine looking into the depth of the captain’s eyes and seeing something other than an indefatigable will to succeed. </p>
<p>It's a problem that the others need to fix on their own, of course. The captain had been the one to tell her that, once, long before they got off the bus at this track meet. </p>
<p>“They’re never going to do their best like this,” the captain’s voice had flittered into Hitoka’s ears unbidden. Nervous that she was eavesdropping and startled by the sound, she turned, flushing up to her ears when she realized that the captain was speaking to her. “not until they understand their own limits will they be able to fully embrace their own talent.”</p>
<p>The captain had spoken with a voice that betrayed knowledge beyond her years in a way that left Hitoka feeling too-young and too-naïve. Hitoka had stumbled over her reply, then, something unintelligible and uninteresting in the face of someone so carefully composed by the will of life. Despite Hitoka feeling like she had ruined something, the captain had, in reply, smiled something so minute and indecipherable that Hitoka wonders, still, if she had not simply imagined the curve of the captain’s lips. Her eyes flickered over to Hitoka’s, and she must have seen something in them, because the tense slope of her shoulders loosened, and her knees dipped forward the slightest amount. </p>
<p>It was not the first time that the captain had gently spoken something that felt arbitrary into the little bubble built around Hitoka, but it was a moment that allowed for the tiniest shift of Hitoka’s perception towards her captain. Before, in Hitoka’s view, the captain had seemed stoic and cold, leaving Hitoka afraid to make a mistake, lest she ends up on her bad side. Now, the captain seemed a little more human, a little more attainable. A little less like she was molded by the gods and a little more like she was just another student at their too-big school. </p>
<p>Now, as the captain crosses the finish line leagues ahead of her competition, Hitoka wishes that she was a little more like the captain, a little wiser, a little more athletic. Hitoka feels her heart clench as she realizes she wishes that she was a little closer to being able to look at the captain from an even playing field. </p>
<p>Hitoka only realizes that her eyes have never left the lithe form of the track captain when the latter turns towards Hitoka from her place in front of the time-keepers’ tent. Although the thought seems unrealistic due to the distance between them and the sun’s glare flashing against her eyes, Hitoka swears that the captain’s eyes meet her own. The corner of the captain’s mouth twitches up, just a little, and Hitoka wishes she could capture this moment in a photograph. Backlit by the setting sun, with usually kept hair disheveled just so, Hitoka thinks that if she knew how to write poems, knew how to structure her sentences and make the words flow, she would write an entire tome dedicated to the way her captain appears in this moment. </p>
<p>Later, after the athletes have gone for a cooldown run, as the captain accepts her gold medal with lackluster fanfare, Hitoka’s heart still feels like it’s going to burst out of her chest.</p>
<p>Karasuno didn’t host this track meet, so, after the last event, the members of the track and field club make their way back to their bus. Hitoka is nervous, like she tends to be, that she forgot something important: a clipboard, a bag, a water bottle. She fidgets in front of the bus’s storage compartment, hands flittering from bag to bag, trying to keep a mental list of what she knows they brought and what’s sitting in front of her now. The stress is too much for her, though, and she keeps losing track of her list and restarting. </p>
<p>“Is something wrong?” A soft voice asks, a body crouching next to where Hitoka is on her knees with her head buried in the bus’s interior. The sudden noise startles her, and she lifts up too fast. With a sharp bang of head meeting metal and a piercing pain in the back of her skull, Hitoka berates herself for making a fool of herself, again. “Oh, I’m sorry, are you alright?”</p>
<p>“Yes!” Hitoka yells, forcing herself into an upright position, her back ramrod straight. </p>
<p>The soft laugh that follows is unexpected, and Hitoka tilts her head to the left to catch a glimpse of her companion.</p>
<p>“I didn’t mean to startle you,” the captain tells her, that distinctive curve of her lip catching Hitoka’s eyes. “I just wanted to know if you were missing anything.”</p>
<p>“No!” She yells, and then realizes she yelled, and quiets herself down with a blush. “I mean, I don’t think we’re missing anything...”</p>
<p>The captain nods decisively, and rocks on her heels for a moment. The movement sends a flash of worry through Hitoka, wondering if there was something else that she was supposed to be telling the captain. She goes to open her mouth, prays for the right words to come out,</p>
<p>“Shimizu Kiyoko,” the captain says before Hitoka has the chance to vomit out whatever words are lingering at the base of her tongue. The words go in one ear and out the other, and Hitoka lets out a very unattractive <i>huuh?</i> in reply. </p>
<p>The captain looks away rather cutely, a blush high on her cheeks.</p>
<p>“Shimizu Kiyoko,” she repeats, a little bit louder this time, her reddened cheeks on display. “I never formally introduced myself to you. You’re the manager, yes? I should thank you for all you’ve been doing for the club.”</p>
<p>Shimizu Kiyoko. Shimizu Kiyoko. Shimizu Kiyoko.</p>
<p>The name runs like a mantra through Hitoka’s brain, and she wants so badly to test the taste of them on her tongue. The captain, no, Kiyoko, is still staring at her, though, and Hitoka’s face ignites when she realizes that fact.</p>
<p>“It’s my pleasure, really! I enjoy the work, and it’s nice to be helpful. I still make a lot of mistakes, so maybe I’m not the best, but... I am trying! Thank you for letting me manage the club!”</p>
<p>Kiyoko laughs, a tiny little thing that sets Hitoka’s heart into overdrive and pushes off the balls of her feet to stand. She offers her hand to Hitoka, who is still kneeling, hyperattentive to all of Kiyoko’s movements, with all thoughts of clipboards, bags, and bottles out of her mind. Hitoka reaches out and slips her hand into Kiyoko’s own, grip soft and barely there.</p>
<p>Hitoka is surprised, then, when Kiyoko’s grip turns strong and steady in order to help her back to her feet. Kiyoko is pretty, tall and conventionally attractive, and Hitoka hopes that the former hadn’t felt the nervous sweat that still lingers in the palm of her hand.</p>
<p>“You’re welcome, then.” Kiyoko smiles, and spins around to climb onto the bus. As she grips the handrail to climb on, with one foot suspended in midair, Kiyoko’s face tilts back towards where Hitoka is still uselessly standing a few feet away. “Are you coming, Yachi?”</p>
<p>“Yes!” Hitoka yells, a nervous habit that she can’t seem to break, and slams the door of the bus’s storage compartment closed with a resolute <i>bang!</i></p>
<p>When Hitoka turns to look back at Kiyoko, the latter has already climbed onto the bus and vacated the doorway. With the freedom of solitude, and nobody to send her appraising glances, Hitoka covers her face with both hands and squeals quietly. She begs her heart to settle as she scrunches both eyes closed and mouths the other’s name.</p>
<p>“Shimizu Kiyoko.” Hitoka allows herself to say, once, quietly. She squeals again, her whole body vibrating with built-up nerves, and then says it again: “Kiyoko.”</p>
<p>Sated for the time being, Hitoka bounds to the bus doors and up the stairs. The bus is quiet, as it tends to be after a track meet. All of the club members allow their tired bodies to finally rest, eyes closed and music playing softly from earbuds tucked soundly into their ears. Only a few remain awake, and even they decide to engage in either quiet conversation with their seatmates or remain silent. Normally, Hitoka would also take the chance to doze, but her brief interaction with the club’s captain leaves her too wired to sleep. Instead, she takes her customary seat at the front of the bus, across the aisle from the coach, and lets herself daydream about holding another girl’s hand and hearing soft words in her ears.</p>
<p>It’s only later, after she’s returned home and is curling up into her bed, that Hitoka realizes Kiyoko had said her name without Hitoka ever introducing herself to her.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>just trying to get back into the flow of writing :3<br/>thank you for reading &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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